I've been here before

Nicola Genovese

When? 15.11.2011 19:00 - 18.11.2011

Where? bb15

Nicola Genovese (IT) explores our induced ideas on a mythical past, of an ever more improbable future, of an exotic land full of warriors coming out of the forest. At the same time, the objects from our home, assembled in his sculptures, seem to know far more than the stereotypes we are immerged in and, keeping silent, they bring us somewhere else...maybe where we come from.

Pietro Rigolo

Fotos

AusstellungseröffnungDienstag, 15. November, 19:00

Öffnungszeiten16. November - 18. November, 15:00 - 18:00

BioBorn 1971 in Dolo (Venezia), Nicola Genovese works and lives in Padua (Italy). The presented works were developed during an artist in residence stay at Altelierhaus Salzamt.

How many shapes can an object take, until it becomes something radically different? How many lives can an accidentally funny or awkward family photo live? Nicola Genovese’s artistic practice devises a process of accumulation and assemblage, combining elements apparently distant from one another, in order to give them a second opportunity: a new life. Yellowed pictures founds in flea markets, photographic books and outdated didactic materials, alongside everyday objects, receive a new breath of life through his hands, as if he were a modern sorcerer's apprentice. Images that work through quick unconscious associations often evoke mysterious shapes and meanings. As in contemporary culture, where religions and mythologies often become personal and artificial, these objects, without any connection to the shape they generate, echo this transformation. The works are the result of two different, although coherent procedures. One part is based on the recycling of old, seemingly trivial images, which Genovese transforms with a minimal and ironic touch. The second series is the result of reissuing shapes which have a strong, immediate everyday connotation to generate new meanings. His works evoke at the same time familiar and destabilising images, stimulating and blurring the spectator's perception.